


The Apple Chick

by wisting



Category: The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: Childhood Trauma, F/M, Multi, explicit at parts, people exploiting people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-09 02:16:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1140252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisting/pseuds/wisting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And then she will come to you, says Kvasir. But where did she come from? Time splits into infinity at the point of death. Who is Helen?</p><p>Baby girl, says her father. Helen, says her mother. Idunn, says her aunt. Apple chick, says Anders.</p><p>What sound does the cow make?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Apple Chick

Time splits into infinity at the point of death. Who is Helen?

* * *

She’s been floating around since forever. Somehow she’s never been able to hold on to anything that matters. She has too few friends – none, in fact – and too many boyfriends. She can’t even keep a proper job that doesn’t involve partying twenty-four seven. Maybe it’s because of her parents. She saw it, a little girl hiding under the kitchen table, not daring to make a sound.

She tried different ways. There were men she picked up. Those she left alone, let them stare at her while she walked around naked, let them press kisses against her shoulder as she stared out the window. She didn’t want them. She didn’t know how to want them.

There were the ones who picked her up. She wrapped herself around them, tried to make them lunch and go drinking with their friends; crawled into their arms and slept. After a while they said, “I think we should call it a day.”

She doesn’t know what she’s looking for; never has. She only knows she’s looking. Maybe for other gods and goddesses. Maybe for herself.

Or maybe for the scared little six year old hiding under the kitchen table, _hush little baby don’t say a word, mama’s going to buy you a good clean up of the kitchen and all the blood will be gone, ma’am, you don’t have to worry about a thing, you just focus on getting that little girl to talk again._

 _Baby girl,_ says her father. _Helen_ , says her mother. _Idunn_ , says her aunt. _Apple chick_ , says Anders.

What sound does the cow make?

Sometimes she tried hard. The men who wanted to fix her, who said words like _love_ and _take you away_ and _please_ , she tried to talk to them about what happens in the black night but the little girl would peep at her from under the kitchen table and she’d forget what she was trying to say.

 _Fuck,_ said the men pumping into her, _fuck you’re brilliant, you’re beautiful. Do that again._

Idunn?

Childhoods go wrong. Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. No one knows what they did up there but they came down with a daughter.

* * *

She decides to make herself into a goddess. Every day she wears something green, her little secret. She doesn’t even know what her powers are, but she figures if she makes Idunn part of her she’ll be better at knowing who she is. Idunn isn’t claiming her, she’s claiming Idunn. Embrace it to make herself strong.

One day her car won’t start. She refuses to get a mechanic. For days it sits in the garage of her rented house as she sits there covered with grease, flipping her way through _Cars for Dummies_ , getting oil on every other page. She imagines her ninth boyfriend talking, _come on, honey, just let me fix it for you_.

The fifth day finds her sobbing into the co-driver’s seat. Then she wipes her eyes on her green top. By the next day it’s sold to a guy who’s fighting not to smile the whole time. She follows him to a bar and sits in a corner quietly while he laughs his head off talking to his mate, _I mean it’s a half hour repair job, tops! It was a frigging steal, dude, best deal I ever made. How stupid could that woman be?_

A guy hits on her, she lets him order her a drink with his extra secret ingredient that looks like a small pill that fizzes. Soon they’re doing lines off each other in the bathroom. Everything’s blurry except for a moment when she realises he’s inside her, crude words spilling from his lips as he hammers into her, face contorted.

She didn’t say yes, but it’s just a body. Lots of people have bodies. The next day she politely kisses him goodbye and moves to Auckland.

“Mama’s going to buy you a looking glass,” sings a sad-eyed woman on the plane, rocking a squalling baby.

* * *

Idunn orders an apple juice. It’s important not to get drunk again because she’s looking for a place to live. Men stare at her openly, and she remembers she’s walking around Auckland in a bikini. At least it’s green. She’s worn green so long now she feels uneasy without a touch of it somewhere around. Wasn’t it supposed to make her strong?

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” says hook-up number twenty-one, leaning over the bar and winking at her. “Here’s your apple martini,” she says. They screw on the bartop after hours and he says thank you.

Strong like her daddy?

She does unspeakable things for money. What’s unspeakable nowadays? She has hazy memories of laughing and laughing while guys line up to take their turn between her spread legs. She might have forgotten to say yes and they might have forgotten to ask. The next day is all hangover and vomiting, and she cries and cries when they tell her at the clinic that she’s clean and there’s no baby growing in her, no heartbeat to match her own.

Some time in the future past she even tried being a social escort, mostly rich older men. She liked how they were more needy, more pathetic than her. She plays arm-candy, then agrees to go home with them at night, cradles them to her breasts and strokes her fingers through their hair while they tell her everything that’s gone wrong in their lives, failed marriages, estranged children. With them she knows exactly who she is supposed to be. Gary who is old enough to be her father, not her father, he can be old enough to be her uncle, he falls asleep suckling at her nipple as she sings. She can’t sing very well but her tits make up for it, she guesses.

“My daddy always asked me to come visit him,” she said to his snoring. “A lady made me do it, she said it’d be good for me. Sometimes he was angry and hit the glass. My dad was very strong. Sometimes he was sad and he cried and said sorry. I didn’t know which daddy scared me more. The last time he put his hand to the glass like this when I wouldn’t say anything and the next day he killed himself.”

Is hundreds of thousands of dollars of work not enough? What if she gets a million dollars, will that be enough? Maybe he doesn’t want to work for it! Can she seduce enough money out of her clients from her escort days to make sure Anders never has to work again?

* * *

Dancing, she likes dancing. The music’s so loud there’s no room for Idunn or Helen or baby girl or gorgeous or babe or honey or you’re a good lay ahh just like that bitch.

How many gods are there in New Zealand? What if she said it like a joke, three gods walk into a bar, would it happen? Lots of things are a joke and they become real life. “You’re such a party girl,” said her friends in high school the day after the school was buzzing about how Sam Wilson was bragging about how he’d taken her virginity, and that came true.

Her aunt said, “You’ve been a Norse goddess since you turned twenty-one. You’re Idunn. Go read up on her. Suzie, get back inside and don’t come listening at doors. I can’t help you, I’ve got too much on my plate already. I’ve done as much as I can finding your number. I thought you were twenty-one this year, are you sure you’re twenty-four?”

Another thing that’s funny is how she thought she was in love with her third boyfriend because he made her come for the first time in her life. He was one of the ones she tried to mould herself around, but she didn’t know how to make her bumps fit his.

Did she kill her father?

Bragi is the god of poetry. He tells Idunn a story that never ends, for she is his beloved.

One night as boyfriend nine dropped her off, she put her hand to the glass of his window. He did the same, their hands warming both sides of the glass. She didn’t feel any different. The glass was stained with fingerprints. Fingerprints make everyone unique, but only so people in uniforms can catch you. I put it to you that you killed your wife.

Idunn is the wife of Bragi. She is the giver of youth, the keeper of the apples of the gods. Helen learns to make apple martinis. One day she wakes up and she’s thirty years old. She hasn’t found Helen-that-should-be and she hasn’t found Idunn. Youthfulness doesn’t change the numbers.

“Will you marry me?” said boyfriend seven.

“No, sorry. Thank you,” she said politely.

One time she hooked up with an older man, a widower. They’d met when she’d forgotten her umbrella and he’d offered her his. She even moved in with him and his kids, tried domesticity, played mother and wife. The kids loved her, they ran to her and told her things, and he bought her everything she wanted and surprised her with breakfast in bed. It was everything she’d dreamed of. She loved him and his kids both. But she was restless, her bones itched. Something was wrong somewhere, she couldn’t put a name to it, vague dreams of a voice whispering stories she couldn’t remember when she woke up. It drove her crazy. He cried when she left and so did she.

She doesn’t even like crème brulee. That was her mother’s favourite dessert. She mustn’t be like mum in case she ends up like mum, bleeding out on a kitchen floor.

* * *

Who is Dawn to him? Did Anders ever bang Dawn, bending her over his desk like he bent Helen over a sink? _Danger,_ said the little girl hiding under the table. _Dangerous. That one is._ Maybe sex, maybe not sex, but Dawn has a piece of Anders and that makes her dangerous. The little girl is never wrong, except for the time she hid under the table instead of in a closet.

Didn’t she do everything he wanted? He likes sex, he likes money, he likes drugs, he likes alcohol. She’s provided everything she can think of, everything he can possibly want, from his business to his bed. She would kill to protect him from anything. Why doesn’t he want her? Why doesn’t he want her? She’s finally found where she belongs and he doesn’t want her?

She was sort of glad that mum’s face was unrecognisable. That way she could pretend it wasn’t mum that was lying there. “Mum wake up,” she said, but Mum never heard it because baby girl Helen never said it. When escort client Brad called her baby girl halfway through eating her out, she got up, put on her clothes and walked out.

“You’re one of the most charming women I’ve ever met,” said escort client Remus. “You make me feel young again.” What the fuck sort of name is Remus?

She’s messing up somehow. Just like she did with Mark, with Stephen, with Brett, with Luke, with Sergio. But this is Bragi-Anders. If she loses him she’ll never find anything. He’s her harbour, he’s the only thing she has to cling to, to call hers, her only chance for a normal life with kids and a backyard and aprons, unless he doesn't want that then she doesn't want it either.

“Need to know where I’ve been?” he says.

* * *

When she tries to talk to Suzie her aunt shoos her off. “You can’t tell anyone who’s mortal, even those who are going to become gods and goddesses, otherwise bad things happen. Oh, and stay away from gods, those bastards are the biggest pricks you’ll ever find. Good luck, Helen. You’ll need it.”

“I thought you said I was Idunn,” she says to the closed door.

Bad things happen all the time, but she keeps her mouth shut about god business anyway. She still hasn’t figured out if she killed her father when she was nine.

“She won’t play with us,” said Tanya impatiently to the teacher. “We asked and she just stares and won’t answer. Can I go now?”

Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear. One step, two steps, tickle you under there!

“Please don’t,” she said. “I don’t want to have sex today.”

“Come on, party girl,” said her boss.

What if the moon were made of apple? She reaches out a hand and pretends to pluck it, taking a bite out of it, but it hangs there stubbornly, not even green, it’s blood-red.

* * *

She’s strong now. Idunn and Bragi. No more sex with wrong men, whether they’re nice or douchebags. No more waking up in unfamiliar beds. No more not knowing how to fix cars. She’ll be powerful and in control of her life now like she’s never been able to be – together they can do anything. Bragi and Idunn. Apple-scented snow feels like coming home, only one that’s not for her. “I’m not really a one-man goddess,” she said.

 “I can’t bring you to meet my parents,” said Andrew, looking embarrassed. “They won’t approve.”

“What’s wrong with me?”

“They know about your parents. They have no idea that I’ve been bang- that I’ve been seeing you.”

It took her five years to realise that he never had any intention of bringing her home anyway. She wasn’t that type, said hook-up number fourteen. “You’re fun, heaps fun, and gorgeous and cute and sexy and confident, but you’re just not that type.”

“Baby girl, talk to me,” pleads the murderer. “I’m so sorry.”

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.

* * *

She learnt how to live out of a luggage. Sometimes she didn’t even unpack between boyfriends. You can make your life fit in boxes if you try.

He wanted her legs around his neck, wanted her to make more noise as he did her. He even gave her a tip after that as a joke, only as a joke. It was a year before she quit. He fixed her car when it broke down at work, and sometimes he was kind to her, chased off guys who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Ty holds her close, it’s funny that they’re reunited when she and Anders are shagging for the first time. She’s glad to see him. Ty’s a nice guy, she likes him. But Bragi loves Idunn. It’s destiny. When she asks him what he thinks about destiny, Anders looks at her, then flicks her nose lightly and says, “Sure, why not?” and kisses her until her toes curl and her heart sings.

“My mum said to stay away from George, he’s bad news,” said Trudy, one of her regulars. She stirred her drink moodily. “But I love him.”

“What else do mums do?” she said, fascinated.

The worst part isn’t how Anders is just staring, frozen, instead of holding her tight like a baby girl. It isn’t that she can’t manage to say his name or make any sound. It isn’t that it hurts so much to breathe. It’s that Idunn is going. She doesn’t know how to be Helen without Idunn, not anymore. She’s wearing green, she’s supposed to be strong. Green is the colour of life.

A story that never ends? Once upon a time there was a little girl who wore a red hood. A wolf ate her up. Her father came to save her but accidentally chopped her in half when he killed the wolf.

* * *

Anders never asks about her past and she never tells. She got plenty of looks growing up, curious or pitying or doubtful. She doesn’t need those looks, doesn’t deserve them anymore because Bragi has found her and they’ll be all each other ever needs. All that time spent wearing green has finally paid off.

“Let’s try anal,” says boyfriend two.

“What’s that?” she asks, nervous.

He explains.

“Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Nah. You’ll love it.”

“I don’t think I want to.”

“Trust me, you do.”

She bleeds a bit. It’s the blood that scares her, not the pain, so she grabs her clothes and runs when he’s snoring, and writes him a letter to say she still likes him a lot but she thinks it’s not meant to be, she’s so sorry, decorating it with hearts and little cut-outs of flowers and birds. A couple of days later there’s a naked picture of her asleep stuck to the noticeboard at school and the boys make lewd comments until the end of the year. Her third boyfriend becomes her third boyfriend when he promises to make them shut up. His name is Andrew.

“I’m sorry to tell you that your foster daughter’s father has killed himself,” said the man in blue uniform standing at the door, looking uncomfortable but not sad.

Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow. And everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go. You filthy ho. Stay away from my son. Please, I just want to talk to him, he won’t take my calls. He told me all about how you tried to trick him by telling him that’s his baby, when you’ve been sleeping around. But it’s his! I haven’t!

Jack’s mum slams the door in her face. Jack’s dad secretly calls her to tell her everything will be all right, takes her out to dinner to dry her tears, then fucks her in the bogs. She miscarries two weeks later, free of charge, at seventeen.

“You’re good at mixing drinks,” said Tom. “Want a job?”

* * *

She’s so afraid of losing Anders that she wants him all to herself. Nobody must have the chance to take him away from her. Not Dawn, not Ty, not anybody. She’s his and he’s hers. She loves him so much she could die for him. His eyes, the way he laughs, the way she melts when he pinches her chin. Anders, warm besides her in bed, holding her hand.

“Why can’t you just keep your legs closed?” blurts her third foster mother when she visits her in hospital, then apologises over and over.

Incy wincy spider went up the water spout. Down came the rain and washed the spider out. Out came the sun and dried up all the rain, and incy wincy spider went up the spout again.

* * *

“Come on, mates, let’s see if she can take three dicks at once!” yelled the drunk guy who’d hired her to do unspeakable things to him. “Yeah, smack that arse, make it red!” But she’s Idunn. She’s supposed to be green.

“Hey, see if you can shove your fist up her, Jake.”

“I thought this one was a lap dancer, not a hooker?”

“What’s a little extra on the side? You don’t mind, do you sweetheart? Of course you don’t. Look at her all happy.”

“She can’t talk,” says Jake, laughing himself silly, “her mouth’s full.”

From far away there’s pain, but she’s stoned out of her mind and they’re right, her mouth’s full.

* * *

It wasn’t supposed to be like that. She’d finally found her Bragi, the centre of her world. They were going to be together forever. They’d be happy. She loved him. He loved her.

She wasn’t supposed to have an arrow in her chest. She wasn’t supposed to be hurting.

* * *

A little girl hides under the table until her dress turns red. The kitchen walls are yellow. The lights are blue and red. Her father’s face is white. The uniform is blue. The neighbour’s hair is grey. What sound does the cow make?

Mum, says the cow, mum.

* * *

The last thing Helen-that-was sees is Anders running away.

**Author's Note:**

> Helen's one of my favourite characters, partially because she was written so well, partially because she was acted so brilliantly. And what Ty said about her never having settled anywhere or with anyone made me wonder if that was because she was subconsciously searching for Bragi and couldn't settle for anyone else.
> 
> Yes, the tenses are all mixed up.
> 
> Maybe Helen never really grew up. Not in the ways that mattered.
> 
> Canon has her parents dying when she was in her teens but whatevs :P


End file.
